Unboxing AirFoce Condor SS – By AirgunWeb

PublishedJune 16, 2014

I want to say that I’m pretty sure that I have some of the best viewers and subscribers period. I was recently contacted by a viewer out of Texas who wanted to know if I had any plans to review the Air Force Condor SS in .22 caliber. I let him know that I have tried on multiple occasions to work out an arrangement with Air Force, but for whatever reason they’ve continued to decline to send me products to review. His response simply blew me away; “Would you do a review if I bought one and had it shipped to you?” After a little further discussion, I humbly agreed and we worked out an arrangement for all the various parts of his build to come to me first. I’ll set it up for him, review it, and then send it on to him when I’m done.

Hurry up and wait…

The rifle he was most interested in was the Air Force Condor SS .22 caliber in blue. It was back-ordered for about 45 days, but has finally come in. The other part of his order was a Hawke Sidewinder 6-24×56 Mil-Dot scope and a set of BKL mounts to round out the package. This was a lot of airgun and accessories that I’m being intrusted with here. I’m very happy to say that everything is finally here in the shop and I’ve got some pictures and a little story to tell about my first shots out of the box.

Detal of the fill port on the Spin Loc tank. Our fill cover was busted unfortunately

Great to see that some things are still made in the USA.

Shot of the Hawke Sidewinder Scope

Deatil of the Side Focus and Illumination control for the Hawke Sidewinder Scope.

So what were the first shots like?

Well, to be honest, they were a bit frustrating. There was no discernible differences between low power, 2 for example, and high power. Say 10 for example. Beyond that, it was dumping massive amounts of air with each shot. I believe I dropped 500 psi in a matter of 3 or 4 test shots. I fired off a few quick emails to the tech department over at Pyramyd and waited to see what advice they might have.

Things are looking up…

I got a phone call and an email from Pyramyd about who to contact at Air Force to take a look at the situation. After a few phone calls it was determined that the valve must be defective on this tank that I received. They were gracious enough to send me a new tank, which arrived this morning.

I’ve spend the better part of the day working with this new Condor. There’s still not a lot of difference between low power and high power. But, there is at least a difference and it’s not dumping air like it did with the other tank. I’m pretty sure that I should be able to get 30 to 40 good shots on low and 20 to 30 on the highest usable setting, which I would imagine to be about 6. The H&N Baracuda Match 21 grain pellets are flying out of this thing at an average of 978.7 FPS on power level 2. That seems a bit to hot but we’ll have to wait to see how it does on the range to be sure.

But is it very quiet?

So the question that I’m sure everyone wants to know is; “how quiet is it compared to other shrouded, high powered airguns?” It’s pretty darn quiet. I’ll be taking it out to the range in a day or two and will take my DB meter to check levels. I’ll take my Marauder and my Hatsan QE to test side by side to see how it fairs against two really quiet airguns.

Please stay tuned for the full video later this month on AirgunWeb.com

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